F18919W PT Calving Camera

Calving camera review

Posted by Jarlath Holleran on Jan 21, 2016

Foscam IP Camera

I’ve used a Foscam F18918W IP PT camera, in the past, as a calving camera and I find them fantastic for use in a medium to small sized shed. They are a nice tidy camera and are easy to setup and use. The picture quality is 300K pixels which is clear enough to get a good view of what’s going on. The camera works best when kept as close as possible to the pen(s) that you want to monitor. You can use this camera for monitoring sheep, pigs, horses, or just for general farm security.

F18919W Camera Control Panel
F18919W Camera Control Panel

As with all IP based cameras they are compatible with other IP equipment such as Routers, Ethernet Switches and Wi-Fi Directional Antennas and can be connected together with a Cat5 or Cat6 Ethernet cable. The camera also has a Wi-Fi antenna so it can connect to a Wi-Fi Router without an Ethernet Cable. This can be handy to reduce the number of cables in the system. The antenna that comes with it works around 20-30 metres in range, so if your house is right beside the side calving shed then it should be able to connect your home router, otherwise you could install Directional Antennas to create a long range wireless link from the house to the shed.

F18919W Camera Control Panel F18919W Camera Control Panel F18919W Camera Control Panel
F18919W PT Camera Images

PT functionality

A very useful feature of this camera is that you can control the Pan and Tilt remotely. It has a 355-degree Pan and 90-degree Tilt giving the user comprehensive coverage over the monitored site. Controlling this can be done on a PC, Laptop, or Smart Phone.

Unfortunately, there is no zoom on this camera which is why it’s recommended to position this camera as close to the area you want monitored and use the Pan and Tilt for giving you a good overview of the rest of the shed.

Nightvision

The Nightvision range of the camera is 15 meters and with 22 IR LEDs the images from the camera in darkness works extremely well and clear. The nightvision is not focused in a single area so the full image from the camera can be seen. Also, as with all nightvision camera the images will be in black and white.

DDNS

One of the very nice features of this camera is that it comes with a free embedded unique DDNS domain name. This mean the camera can be accessed remotely, from another network, on a mobile phone or PC. The free DDNS domain name is hosted by Foscam so you can be sure that it’s always available.

For example; the domain name assigned could be in the following format: http://1234.myfoscam.org. Typing this into your browser will access your camera remotely. If you want more information about how a DDNS works you have a look at this article about connecting an IP Camera remotely.

Apps

Foscam have apps that were built for these cameras on the Android and Apple apps store. These apps are very easy to set up. Simply configure the app by entering the IP address, or domain name.

Foscam Viewer for IPhone

Foscam Viewer for Andriod

Purchasing this camera on Amazon

You can purchase these cameras on Amazon. Here is a link to it:

Other Features

The camera also has some nice features such as:

  • Clear Picture quality
  • Free DDNS
  • Wireless Connectivity
  • Network Cable Connector
  • Pre-set Points
  • Strong hardened waterproof outer shell
  • DIY Installation
  • Supports most standard broswers

Negatives

The only small negative thing I have with this camera is that there is no zoom on it. So if you have a large shed or you want to cover a large area then this is probably not the camera for you. Other than that it’s a great camera for monitoring your animals.


Thanks for reading this article. I hope you found it useful. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or feedback. Thank you.